Green Energy Security Act

Mr. Speaker, Bill 28 – A Green Energy Security Act – is the third job creation bill I have presented to the Legislative Assembly. The first was the Local Food Security Act and the second was the Green Jobs Act.

Just like the Local Food Security Act, and the Green Jobs Act, The Green Energy Security Act is designed to create the conditions to drive community economic development in every corner of New Brunswick, to create jobs, to create business opportunities, to make more space in our economy for the energy efficiency sector, for the renewable energy sector, for the clean tech sector, and public transportation.

For this to happen, it needs to be the mandate of an institution of government that has clear targets to meet. The closest we have come in the past was Efficiency New Brunswick, but it was never given targets to achieve, nor was its mandate broad enough.

This is why at its core, this bill is designed to establish a Crown Corporation which would be called Renew New Brunswick or Renouveau Nouveau-Brunswick.

Renew New Brunswick, because it would bring about economic renewal in every corner our province as it propels the green energy transition forward.

We need an institution with a mandate for community economic development driven by clear targets to significantly increase energy efficiency in our building stock, including residential housing and commercial buildings.

There are 319,775 households in New Brunswick. According to the 2016 census, 69% or 221,604 are single family homes; 13.8% or 44,129 are apartments in building with fewer than 5 stories; and 4.2% or 13,430 New Brunswick households are in apartments within duplexes.

Sixty percent of our housing stock was built before 1995. Imagine a program goal to improve the energy efficiency of that housing stock over a reasonable time period.

Building contractors, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, insulating contractors, siding companies, roofers, painters, heating and ventilation contractors, and general labourers would have decades of work.

Main Street would be booming with building supply centres, hardware stores, and paint stores would be doing a booming business. Window and door manufacturers, insulation manufacturers, metal shops, manufacturers of wood products would see a jump in their sales that would continue, year in and year out.

Clear targets to upgrade our building stock, combined with innovative financing mechanisms to unlock millions of dollars of private investment from the home and building owners would make this a reality.

The zero interest loan program previously offered by Efficiency New Brunswick is one example. Repayment could be attached to the property tax billing system, so the costs and benefits would stay with the building through its resale.

The money saved by home and building owners would be spent elsewhere in the economy, rather than on heating the great outdoors, creating more jobs. The upgrades to homes and buildings would increase their re-sale value as well.

A 2012 study called Energy Efficiency: An Engine of Economic Growth in Eastern Canada, commissioned, in part, by the New Brunswick government found that fully developing our energy efficiency resources could create as many as 1,360 jobs per year, increase government revenues by $21 million to $34 million per year.

We are blessed with abundant renewable energy resources that have barely been developed.

We have biomass from our forests, our farms and our seafood and food processors, from which we can manufacture solid fuels like wood pellets, biogas for space heating and power generation, and biofuels such as biogas and bio-diesel to power buses, trucks and heavy equipment.

We have solar energy regimes that far exceed those of Germany to provide passive solar heat to homes, businesses, institutions and industry. Solar energy can power water and space heaters. And the sun can generate electric power.

Imagine our farmers earning a new source of income by harvesting the sun for its power to grow crops and generate electricity.

Every municipal government, school, hospital, and large commercial and industrial building owner could generate electricity from solar power plants. And we have the smart grid technology to integrate this distributed power into our grid.

We have enviable on-shore and off-shore wind resources that make us the envy of the world, but these have barely been tapped. First Nations, municipalities, cooperatives and others have developed proposals for wind generation that far exceed the modest request for proposals that NB Power made for community-based renewable power.

This was an effort to fulfill the province’s 12 year old target for NB Power to deliver 10% of the power it provides to customers from new renewable sources of power.

Clear targets to provide heat, power and fuel from local clean, green renewable resources would create the conditions for new manufacturing, service and consulting businesses.

It would create jobs of all sorts from engineers and electricians, to metal fabricators and millwrights.

Public TransportationFrom Surfaces to Services : An inclusive and sustainable transportation strategy was submitted to the government last year by the Rural and Urban Transportation Advisory Committee of the NB Economic and Social Inclusion Corporation last year.

The recommendations it made were designed to:
•Make transportation affordable
•Make the transportation system accessible
•Make transportation more available
•Make the transportation system more sustainable
•Improve economic inclusion and quality of life

Renew New Brunswick would have the responsibility for implementing a sustainable transportation strategy consistent with the provincial interest the committee articulated in its report: “New Brunswick has an interest in supporting the economic, environmental, social and cultural well-being of urban and rural communities by developing and promoting a provincial, integrated, affordable, accessible, multimodal, sustainable transportation plan.

As the committee, wrote: “ transportation is critical for New Brunswickers to achieve economic and social inclusion, maintain quality of life, and access essential services such as healthcare and education.

It also happens to be the third largest source of carbon pollution in the province after the coal-fired power plant in Belledune and the oil refinery in Saint John.

The Green Energy Security Act will replace energy imports, making us more secure, retaining the dollars that now flow out of our economy to import oil, gas and coal. Energy efficient, solar and wood pellet heated homes are less subject to the disruptions caused by power failures. Overall we would become far more energy self-sufficient.

And of course, by developing energy efficiency, transitioning to clean, green renewable energy, and shifting more travel to public transportation services, we would substantially reduce our dependence on the oil, coal, gasoline and natural gas whose carbon wastes have already piled up enough in our atmosphere and oceans to destabilize our climate and acidify our coastal waters.

The creation of Renew New Brunswick recognizes that the green economy starts here – at home.

It would institute clear targets to reduce energy demand through energy efficiency and conservation in our homes, buildings, industry, equipment, electronics and transportation.

It would set targets to reduce dependence on fossil fuels by shifting to renewable sources of energy for heating, for transportation and for electric power generation.

RenewNB would provide incentives and innovative financing measures to households, municipalities, businesses and industry to reduce their energy consumption and assist them in adopting clean energy technologies to harness the power of renewable sources of energy.